Is Warhammer getting too expensive? Or is it actually an affordable hobby?

[Doghouse]

As one of the older players I'd say yes coming from a time when you could get three rhinos for a tenner, two land raiders for fifteen quid and marines came in a box of thirty six for ten quid.

 

But that's just my personal experience and perspective and newer players may see it differently. My mind is still in the age of racks of metal blister minis and saving pocket money when it comes to the hobby in general and not the corporate behemoth that it is now. The Enid Blyton view of wargaming I guess by today's standards.

 

I think a better question to ask might be is do you think Warhammer good value?

[Inquisitor Eisenhorn]

I’ve always thought that GW games as a hobby are an expensive hobby, except for all of the other hobbies   Holy…. are hobbies expensive.  

 

But I try to at least compare it to more comparable hobbies I.e. gaming related ones, and I think as far as gaming hobbies, it’s one of the most expensive, in my experience.
 

When I was younger I was really drawn to any sort of game that had a small footprint and small model count just to deal with my being young and poor and without much table space beyond my coffee table and even dabbled in (groans) Deadzone (shudders) because Mantic figured out about 5-8 years sooner than GW that lots of folks like me wanted smaller board game /skirmish hybrids.  I would have been in heaven 10 years ago with the intro games they’ve released recently.  

As it was I was doing my own hacks of FFG’s descent 2nd edition for 40k just to get some sort of gaming experience that I was looking for.  
 

I’m older and have more space and budget than I once did, but it does seem like their prices overall are going up faster than my income, though, which always feels bad.  
 

I do think that @Halandaar’s point about the game rules being exploited to make the main game more expensive than it needs to be is spot on.   The edition churn, rules bloat etc really make playing “proper” 40k pretty ridiculous, and that’s a big part of what also makes me as a GW customer feel like I’m getting squeezed…which is why I never play mainline 40k anymore.  I’ll use older edition rules or recently One Page Rules or much more likely just Kill Team.  

Edited November 25, 2022 by Inquisitor Eisenhorn

[Stitch5000]

Back in 1998, when I suspect many of us might identify as the early years of our hobby involvement, the average weekly wage was about £320, in 2021 it was £610 and as kids, we earned nothing like that. 

As we have grown older and our disposable incomes have been established, it only stands to reason that we spend more on warhammer now than we did when we were young.

Back in the day you could buy things for your pocket money, but you had no option because that was the only money you could access, £2-3 here or there and a massive fiver if you were lucky and your Nan hooked you up. Now, you can blow £40, £50 or £200 as you have access to that kind of money to spend. If you have had a bank account with easy access to money like that each payday, you probably would have done the same thing back then as you do today. 
 

[Corswain]

Undoubtedly an expensive hobby but I do get more hobby time from an $80 box than I usually do from an equivilantly priced xbox game. And generally more satisfaction.

[Inquisitor Eisenhorn]

46 minutes ago, Corswain said:

Undoubtedly an expensive hobby but I do get more hobby time from an $80 box than I usually do from an equivilantly priced xbox game. And generally more satisfaction.

Yeah I did get really into Elden Ring for a few months but generally video games just don’t hold my attention like they used to, and I almost never choose them for my free time anymore.

[Halandaar]

1 minute ago, Inquisitor Eisenhorn said:

Yeah I did get really into Elden Ring for a few months but generally video games just don’t hold my attention like they used to, and I almost never choose them for my free time anymore.

 

This brings up a pretty relevant comparison for the purposes of a topic about hobby affordability: 

 

Despite me being in a similar boat to you where I often don't play video games for long anymore before losing interest, I would love to play God of War Ragnarok. The problem is that I don't own a PS5, so even if I can get hold of one (still not easy) I'm looking at a starting cost in excess of £500 to play one game.

 

Sure after that each successive new game is "only" £60, but that initial cost is a significant barrier to entry for me.

 

As for how this relates to the topic, I can get started in any GW system for a fraction of that cost, and in a few cases (like Underworlds, Blood Bowl or Warcry), I could get the core game and the majority of the available faction sets too. Or there are standalone games with solo campaigns like Blackstone Fortress or Cursed City, again a fraction of the price, and potentially more hours of enjoyment.

 

So yeah, it's an expensive hobby. But I'd argue it has many more affordable entry points than video gaming which requires a huge upfront investment.

[Inquisitor Eisenhorn]

38 minutes ago, Halandaar said:

 

This brings up a pretty relevant comparison for the purposes of a topic about hobby affordability: 

 

Despite me being in a similar boat to you where I often don't play video games for long anymore before losing interest, I would love to play God of War Ragnarok. The problem is that I don't own a PS5, so even if I can get hold of one (still not easy) I'm looking at a starting cost in excess of £500 to play one game.

 

Sure after that each successive new game is "only" £60, but that initial cost is a significant barrier to entry for me.

 

As for how this relates to the topic, I can get started in any GW system for a fraction of that cost, and in a few cases (like Underworlds, Blood Bowl or Warcry), I could get the core game and the majority of the available faction sets too. Or there are standalone games with solo campaigns like Blackstone Fortress or Cursed City, again a fraction of the price, and potentially more hours of enjoyment.

 

So yeah, it's an expensive hobby. But I'd argue it has many more affordable entry points than video gaming which requires a huge upfront investment.

Yeah this is an interesting point, I was thinking about that when I was comparing them, and I don’t really scrutinize how much I spend on non-model hobby items like paint, brushes, primer, raw terrain material etc. which definitely tags on a bit of a buy-in expense if you are just starting out in the hobby, although not in the level of a new gaming console.  
 

It seems like the cost of a game system amortized across its whole generation cycle if you buy early in the cycle is pretty low, but it is a very high initial cost to buy in if you’re trying to get a new PlayStation or Xbox.  
 

Then again if you really want to play video games as a hobby there are less costly options than a PS5, so you could still keep your costs pretty low overall.  Console exclusives can make this worse though, since I’m missing out on a lot of Xbox titles unless I drop another huge  chunk and own 2 consoles which I don’t really think is worth it to me personally.  

 

 

Edited November 25, 2022 by Inquisitor Eisenhorn

[WARMASTER_]

Price is such a subjective topic I feel you could never come to a consensus 

 

That said I feel like this hobby has fantastic value opportunities, as a painter, Hobbyist and lore enthusiast rather than a gamer I can get massive value from just a few boxes of models that will take me many many hours to build [Kit bash] not to mention coming up with backstory etc! feel like there’s very few hobby where that kind of value can be found for that price 

[Lay]

The hobby is patently, objectively, inexcusably expensive. Likewise, hobbyists are patently, objectively, inexcusably addicted, so actually everything is fine.

[Bouargh]

I was tempted to say yeahhh, at first. But then I took some time to think about it and came to the conclusion that it has always been an expensive hobby and that it is in fact maybe cheaper today. Depending on how, and what you play, as well as the way you step into the universe / entry game.

 

Is you step into directly through 40k,  some aspects of the game structure are now making the entry ticket more premium than it used to be IMO.

 

1. First: the books you need - the printed part has raised a lot, faster than the inflation; plus, but also depending of your gaming expereinece/group..., you might have some incentives to buy more rules and more books than just the minimum required ones. Codices, especially for SM, have suffered a lot of that snow ball effect. In 2010 the BA codex was 22,75€. Now you need the SM + BA supplement all for 57€ (if I looked it right). 
   Just to remind, that between 2010 and now, the inflation where I am has been 3% total, with some years even at zero, and 2021 at 6,5%...
   Price increase of the printed material as raised more than that, do the math. Of course the books are now fully in colour, but most of the background content is recycled again and again... so the value I tend to grant to this material is low/poor, making it for me a real pain if I have to come to the decision to buy such a  codex... (especially cosndering that it is a material where the rule part has probably been design by monkeys as it will need corrections and patches every quarter...)
   Interesting to see how juicy the prints are for a company that was pretending a few years ago being a model making company, not a rule making company. 
    
2. Second: the army - here you cannot have common statement, valid for everything: some armies are correct, others are a black hole for your funds... For example a SM army remain a low-medium count army with a lot of starter kits and you can easily build up a decent force, well, not really on budget, but at least limiting the expenses. This is not true for Astra militarum (45 bucks for a DKoK single unit, kidding?). Yet even in a given force some models are overprized: a stormspeeder or an Impulsor looks expensive for what they bring gamewise; even is the minis are great.  Of course a 47.5€ for intercessor or custodian remain expensive ... But what is now very expensive are the characters. Same "jump back in time exercise", this time in 1999: the emperor champion 25th anniversary special edition was 60 Fr; applying with a very generous 3% inflation per year, it would be equivalente to 18-20€ now, worse case. Yet the current model is 31€. The pricing scheme galore used for books strikes again.

 

But what makes me really think that, in the end , albeit everything I said before, 40kalthough being expensive, is not really more expensive than a decade (or more) ago, is that the productis distinct: it is not really an apple vs. an apple anymore. Let me try to explain:

 

Before you were playing 40k and that was it. That was all and only that. Because there was nothing else with sufficient audience.

Now you have other games in the same universe, and frankly, they are good. ANd they have a good player base. And I guess these are the real new entry games in the hobby: kill team, necromunda... you do not come into 40k as before and you can have great gaming experiences only with one set now. As a company, you do not therefore need to sell cheap models or products throughout your entire catalog, because you have other ways to drive the market.

 

So in the end it is more delicate and subtile than price before vs. price now, as the gravity center has gone, I feel, toward cheaper games that may lead gamers to step into and fidelize on a different mechnism. Once hooked price starts to be pointless. And anyway, whatever addictive it is, you know the price for the ticket to ride before... As this is the very same box you used in your KT than in your SM army...

 

 

[Sky Potato]

I must be crazy, because Warhammer is one of the cheaper hobbies I have, on a £/time ratio.

 

£25 per skydive in the UK. For about 60 seconds of freefall and about the same under canopy. In fairness, you can book 10 jumps for £235. Plus travelling to the DZ. Cheaper overseas obviously, but then more travel costs.  Add annual fees for various club memberships, insurances, parachute maintenance and safety checks etc. Oh yeah, can only do it when the weathers good. Even if it’s a lovely sunny day, too much wind can stop play.

 

Or video games, easily £60 per game but these days the single player campaign is done in a couple of days and I’m nowhere near good enough at the multiplayer games to enjoy them online anymore. And I can only play the Xbox if the missus doesn’t want to watch anything on TV.

 

Warhammer, I can get a box of 20 MkIII Space Marines for £45, including the cost of postage. It’ll take me about the same amount of time as two skydives to open the packaging and grab all my tools and glue, the same amount of time as one Xbox single player campaign to snip, de-mouldline and assemble. Which leaves me with painting and then gaming. And unlike a video game, I can still play when the console is obsolete or if the multiplayer server is closed down - I still have the Gorkamorka rule books and that was what, 1997?

 

I get that this is an expensive hobby. I’m not putting anyone down who is struggling with money and feels priced out the hobby. I just feel that this hobby above almost all others that I’ve seen can offer a strong return on how much hobby time your cash will allow you to have.

 

I’m remembering the picture of a pair of deployed US service personnel during the Gulf War, playing a game of 40K in the desert. All they have is a rule book, some dice and a measuring tape, and some cardboard cutouts in place of models. Total investment there about probably £30 or £40 (between at least two) in todays money, for hours of time passing while abroad. I can almost guarantee they played plenty whilst deployed.

 

I think the only cheaper way to spend my time is with my guitar or by running. Both hobbies which have a (relatively) low entry cost but which can be a money sink if you get bitten by the bug.

 

TL:DR - it’s expensive, everything is these days. I get almost 10x more hobby time out of every Warhammer pound spent than any other method.

[Mandragola]

It kind of depends I guess. I can afford to buy more models than I have time to paint, so I guess it’s not expensive for me. I still shop around and am a sucker for a bargain. I’m tempted to buy three predators that I don’t need for an army I’ll never use, because they’re cheap on Black Friday. I won’t do this. 
 

When I used to do 40K tournaments that could be quite expensive and time-consuming. I’d buy the new hotness. I have things like three repulsed executioners that I never finished because they were nerfed into the ground before I could field them, for example. Should I eBay them or just bin them? Dunno. 
 

the last three events I went to were for adeptus Titanicus and I didn’t spend much on them. I painted one new titan (a dire wolf) and some resin guns but otherwise mostly fielded models I’ve had since 2018 or 19. That wasn’t expensive at all, in time or money. 
 

I’ve also got into historical stuff since Covid. I recently bought a box of 42 Perry US infantry for WW2 games for £20. They’re great models and they can be used in countless game systems. And an infantryman with a rifle or a Sherman tank will always be useful - they’re never going to be superseded by GW deciding to bring out a new unit. 

[Emperor Ming]

If it wasn't for 3rd party retailers that offer 20-25% off I wouldn't be in the hobby

 

Simple as

 

and Uk economy looks doomed for next few years 

[Scribe]

Yes, without reservation. 

[sarabando]

my problem is that my local GW manager often compares GW with games to justify the cost. however that £60 game will be £10 in 2 years. the mk2 land raider is more expensive now days than when it was release even accounting for inflation. 

[Lord_Ikka]

My main issue isn't that 40k is too expensive, it's that GW is too expensive compared to other comparable products. Look at the value of Wargames Atlantic boxes, for example; 24-30 infantry models with multiple options for weapons and wargear for $35, whereas a squad of Cadians costs 50 for ten models. Now, I will say that GW models are more detailed, but the WA guys aren't bad at all and with my painting you wouldn't be able to tell much of a difference. So, for a third less you get over double the number of models and even more weapon options than you would get with two GW kits. That is a really big deal for me- there is no reason that regular Troops, which should be the base of most armies, are so expensive. It gets worse when you look at other tabletop games like X-wing or Marvel Crisis Protocol- those games can have good, competitive tournament list armies bought for roughly $200, where it is usually double with 40k when you factor in rulebooks and codices. 

 

A lot of GW decisions are the same "nickel-and-dime" style tactics that they've used for years- rules/codices being very high-priced, increasing cost of models, codex creep to make tournament players buy the latest and greatest army, etc... and it is going to bite them in the end. The looming prospect of cheap and easy 3d printers becoming commonplace for hobbyists and several up and coming 3rd party miniature makers that want a bigger slice of the pie should worry GW. 

[jarms48]

22 hours ago, Lafarus said:

When I was younger, I always thought Warhammer was expensive.  Having taken a hitatus from playing for a while and coming back to see the ever increasing prices which in some sense is normal I guess due to inflation.  But I just wanted to hear your guys thoughts on the price and how much you guys have spent in total.

 

On one hand when I was younger I always thought it was ridiculous we all pay this much for some plastic.  But on the other hand, it is a hobby that you can play for a really long time.  If you stuck around for a decade or even longer, it's actually a rather affordable recreational activity if you think about it that way.  

 

 

When I started a box of 20 guardsmen was $50 AUD. That was from GW directly. They were much less from a discount retailer, from memory, I was paying about $37.50 AUD.

 

The old Cadian Battleforce box was $150 AUD. Which had 20 guardsmen, 3 heavy weapon teams, a leman russ, and terrain. I was paying about $112.50 AUD from the shop I went to. 

 

Now-a-days they're $77 AUD for 10 models. So if I wanted to buy 100 guardsmen now, that's $770 AUD from GW or about $616 from a discount retailer. Back then it was $250 AUD from GW and $187.50 from the shop I went to. Which is pretty ridiculous and I would have never started this hobby at todays prices.  

Edited November 26, 2022 by jarms48

[Doghouse]

7 hours ago, Emperor Ming said:

If it wasn't for 3rd party retailers that offer 20-25% off I wouldn't be in the hobby

 

Simple as

 

and Uk economy looks doomed for next few years 

 

Same for me and also why I turned to 3d printing.

[The Unseen]

The barrier to entry, or barrier for a complete new army, is totally crazy at this point. Especially with how badly written the 40k books are written, on top of the recent swap to frequently updating stuff (Which is good, don't get me wrong) has heavily exacerbated GW's inability to write a consistent ruleset. You buy a codex now and a week after release it isn't up to date enough to use in anything other than the most casual of games, and sometimes it doesn't even make it a week. And even the core rulebook at this point isn't worth its print.  On top of the complete failure of the digital app and army builder, its really hard to justify spending $60 for a lot of paper that isn't actually going to be what I reference 90% of the time, when games-workshop is actually up to date, correct, and decently laid out, for free.

 

The actual cost of the models spread out over the time of building, painting, and playing has crept up, but not many times that of inflation like some other hobbies, but some of the newer large kits are getting a little egregious. The FW conversion prices on the other hand, are complete bonkers. I was just curious and went and looked at what a squad of 5 Horus Heresy Dawnbreakers would cost me. $99, for 5 resin jump pack infantry models. And you'll want more than 5 to actually use them in a game, so $200+tax. Most Primarchs are inching up towards $150, or in Sanguinius case has slightly exceeded it. That is patently absurd, primarchs aren't any larger or much more complicated than your average legion specific contemptor dreads, its because they know people will pay for them anyway, and you only *need* one per army. If the prices weren't crazy high you wouldn't see the 3d party market or straight up re-casters get nearly as much attention, because GW still does make nice models, and their customer service has usually been excellent. But for FW at least I'm totally priced out, not because I couldn't theoretically save up enough to buy them, but because I refuse to buy products that are so obviously almost insultingly high price gouges for a hobby.

 

The model count bloat is one of the bigger factors here for how expensive a new army is, since the game both just isn't even pretending to be balanced at a 1000 pts, and unless your getting into a slow league or friends all starting at the same time, at least in the states the common pick up game is pretty solidly set at 2k. If you go into knowing what your doing and what you want, you can buy that 2k army and it isn't all that absurd (though some armies are notably cheaper than others), but if your a newbie who buys a little bit of everything that looks cool, and then try to convert that into even an RTT capable army, he might have to buy basically that whole army still.

 

And its quite obvious the prices are set high, you don't become on of the top UK companies peddling stuff cheap, and when they release box-sets like the AoD box where your getting stuff at a ridiculously steep discount compared to buying it separately, you know they aren't selling those boxes to retailers at a loss.

 

I'm not going to tell a large Corp how to run their business, but the 3d printer market is nipping at their heels hard, I costed it out, it would be notably cheaper for me to buy a nice, upper mid-range printer and buy some good 3d party guard sculpts (especially Krieg for some reason, probably because they were super popular and fully supported, but only in resin and therefore ungodly expensive even 10 years ago) and print the whole army. And afterwards, I'd still have a printer. And the new midrange stuff is printing stuff where the print lines are basically non-existent, some of the stuff some locals have printed you can't tell the difference without looking at the prints before they're painted, a layer of primer and the lines are gone.

Edited November 26, 2022 by The Unseen

[Doghouse]

1 hour ago, The Unseen said:

 

I'm not going to tell a large Corp how to run their business, but the 3d printer market is nipping at their heals hard, I costed it out, it would be notably cheaper for me to buy a nice, upper mid-range printer and buy some good 3d party guard sculpts (especially Krieg for some reason, probably because they were super popular and fully supported, but only in resin and therefore ungodly expensive even 10 years ago) and print the whole army. And afterwards, I'd still have a printer. And the new midrange stuff is printing stuff where the print lines are basically non-existent, some of the stuff some locals have printed you can't tell the difference without looking at the prints before they're painted, a layer of primer and the lines are gone.

 

After going down this route I have found that I can make sixty truescale marines for about £25 once I had the printer. And that is printed built saving me time having to put them together. It's a bit daunting at first but pretty easy once you get into with a ton of STL files out there for free and tons of Youtube vids Something like an Elegoo Mars is pretty cheap now, even my Elegoo Saturn has dropped a couple of hundred quid.

 

I can normal fill the build plate four or five times per bottle of resin producing about thirty regular sized marines or Imperial Guard sized models each of those times. Given that most kits seem to be monopose these days anyway I'm quite content to print away.

 

For marines in particular there are tons of free files.

 

So in that respect the hobby has gotten a lot cheaper for me but if I were to buy GW official stuff it wouldn't.

 

[Blindhamster]

It's ultimately fully subjective.

I haven't been in the hobby quite as long as doghouse, joining in 2nd ed where a tactical squad of 10 plastic monopose marines were 10 quid, or a box of... 6 multipart ones with no weapon options were 5 quid. Or a pack of 2 metal marines with plastic arms was... 4 quid I think, My first Dante model was something like 6 or 7 pounds.

 

So yes, compared to then, the hobby is expensive.

 

However, those models sucked compared to modern ones in terms of detail, I also always hated the metal models, so fully plastic is another huge boon. The models are usually more dynamic than back then too, and far more diverse.

 

It gets interesting when comparing the 3rd ed tactical squad, which I think originally retailed at something like 12 quid compared to the modern tactical squad for 32.50 because they two kits are essentially identical in terms of poses, and number of models, and even to some extent weapon options. You're paying 20.50 more for increased details (they ARE much better detailed than the 3rd ed tactical squad was, as well as better proportioned, albeit still gorilla armed and squat) and a few extra options (sergeant weapons, special weapons and random bits. Or comparing the 3rd ed tactical squad to a primaris intercessor squad where it can be argued there's less posability in the primaris models at the cost of the actual poses available by default being somewhat better and more detailed... still hard to argue they're 3x the value of the old 3rd ed tactical squad.

 

Guard are a more interesting story, they've been predominently metal in the past and when they are, they're super expensive, the plastic cadians were better value for money, the newer cadians probably cost similar to what metal regiments have cost in the past though and are far nicer models than the old plastics or the old metals.

 

Then as others have said, there's 3d printing. I still struggle with the idea on ethics for that, arguably all the straight knockoffs SHOULD be pulled because they're IP theft, but there's still plenty of similar enough things that aren't straight knockoffs that would still remain. If you opt to go that route, the hobby isn't anywhere near as expensive though (albeit, nicer STLs do still tend to cost money and does require a heavier up front investment).

 

Then finally, there's the question of income. Some people earn minimum wage, or barely above. For those people, the hobby is expensive, regardless of what you get for the money. Then you have people that earn enough to be getting taxed 40% of a significant part of their earnings... for those people, the hobby is likely deemed inexpensive. Then you have everyone in between.

 

I personally haven't bought much for a while, mostly because the hobby is too expensive to justify impulse buys these days. BUT, if a thing comes out I really want, I tend to be in a position to buy it and be happy. Overall GW get a lot less of my income now than they did a decade ago, but this isn't entirely down to price rises.

[Arkhanist]

The original RTB01 box of 30 mark VI marines was £9.99 RRP in 1987 for 30 marines. Adjusted for inflation (264%), that's £26.43, or 88p per marine. The new heresy box of 20 mark VI tactical marines is £47.50 RRP for 20 marines, or £2.38 per marine. That's a price change of 270% over inflation - literally double the rate of inflation from 1987 to 2022. Plus you'd need to buy additional special and heavy weapon sprues (e.g. £26 for 10 missile launchers and 10 hvy bolters) but I'll ignore that.

 

(from here and here) Average gross weekly wage for all men, all ages was £220 in 1987; accounting for inflation, that's worth £581 in 2022. The same cohort earned £809 per week in 2022 (so far), so average pay is worth 139% over inflation for the same period. This is partly explained by the significant transition from manual workers to non-manual workers in the same period, and some percentage of productivity improvements being passed on. Wage growth has obviously shrunk substantially for the last decade, and in some cohorts (e.g. public sector workers) is even negative over the last decade. Assets value has increased far, far more than income over the same period, but I'm not going to calculate that because it's too depressing.

 

So to summarise; GW prices have changed 270% since 1987 over inflation for marines, while men's wages have changed 139% over inflation. To buy marines, you're now paying, in comparison to income, basically twice as much as a hobbyist who started in 1987 did (I started in '89, for reference)

 

Measuring pricing parity overall is hard, because cost of living has also changed substantially; for example, house prices (and thus rents) have soared. After adjusting for inflation, an average house in 1987 was just shy of £145k; in 2022, it's £271k.

 

However you slice it, the hobby is substantially more expensive than it was in the late 80s compared to income on a very basic comparison. But models are also substantially more complex, detailed, and bigger, so how much of that increase represents a better *value* is entirely subjective.

 

(Yes, the latest 5.8% price increase only affects 3rd party traders; but don't forget GW retail prices went up by between 5% and 20% in March, and likely will again in 2023)

 

 

 

Edited November 26, 2022 by Arkhanist

[Robbienw]

The only time I find it too expensive is when GW release a load of stuff I want for several different ranges in a small period of time, and I want it all immediately 

[sarabando]

7 hours ago, Doghouse said:

 

After going down this route I have found that I can make sixty truescale marines for about £25 once I had the printer. And that is printed built saving me time having to put them together. It's a bit daunting at first but pretty easy once you get into with a ton of STL files out there for free and tons of Youtube vids Something like an Elegoo Mars is pretty cheap now, even my Elegoo Saturn has dropped a couple of hundred quid.

 

I can normal fill the build plate four or five times per bottle of resin producing about thirty regular sized marines or Imperial Guard sized models each of those times. Given that most kits seem to be monopose these days anyway I'm quite content to print away.

 

For marines in particular there are tons of free files.

 

So in that respect the hobby has gotten a lot cheaper for me but if I were to buy GW official stuff it wouldn't.

 

when i got my Mars 1 at the beginning of covid i worked out if i sold mk2 marines at the cost GW did it would take me less than a week to make the money back on the printer and resin XD

[Cleon]

As a few others have mentioned, it depends what you want to get out of the hobby and what you compare it to.

 

If you want to run one 2000 point army with a few swaps, have the latest codex for it, enjoy the building and painting process and go to a local club with a low fee most weekends for games (or have your own table) then the cost compared to time enjoyed is really low compared to most hobbies, a few hundred quid to set up and then a low rolling cost thereafter. If on the other hand you are chasing the meta, keeping multiple armies current with rules and new releases and then playing in tournaments with entry fees and travel costs then it's much higher, especially if you only consider the 'gaming' your hobby and the building painting a time tax.

 

Personally my two main hobbies are Wargaming (not just GW and to be honest while a GW force is the most expensive 'per game' army, I feel I get a lot more for my money (twice the model count) to the point it seems 'fair') and wildlife, mostly my other hobby costs me between five and 20 pounds a week in travel and entry costs, wildlife trust subscriptions etc. depending where I go, but occasionally will have much higher costs - a few hundred pounds in a single go for a new camera, new binoculars, more than that for my telescope and occasional trips away.

 

For me, I probably wouldn't start now with the current prices, but as I already have a collection (that's continually expanding) and a group of friends to talk about it and game with and I find painting a relaxing way to de-stress after work, I find continuing at my current 'buy stuff if it's a good deal or new and inspiring' to be value for money for me (and I do have a backlog that would take me a couple of years at least to work through if I did stop buying stuff.....).